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It&rsquo;s been a long two weeks following our AMD-review-athon weekend, culminating 7/7 with our extensive coverage of the new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, the new Radeon RX 5700 series Navi GPUs, as well as our complete overview of X570 chipset based motherboards.
Among the things that didn&rsquo;t go quite as planned for in the hectic period leading up to Sunday was the matter of launch BIOSes. Always a thorny issue with new platform launches &ndash; BIOSes are often under intensive development right up until a new platform ships &ndash; we ended up in a situation where some boards had multiple BIOS versions floating around, with performance differences among them. And, while Moore&#39;s Law may be dead, Murphy&#39;s Law is alive and well, so of course the BIOS we ended up doing our initial Ryzen 3000 testing on was not the best BIOS for the platform.
So, we want to clarify the timeline of events for how we initially tested, what we&rsquo;ve re-tested, and if and how the new BIOS behavior might change our original conclusion of the Ryzen 3000 series.

VAIO has introduced its new SX12 notebook that brings together miniature dimensions, low weight, decent specs, full-pitch keyboard, a long battery life, and vast connectivity options that include a variety of physical ports and an optional 4G/LTE modem. Unlike most 12-inch laptops, the VAIO SX12 does not use a low-power processor, but packs a fully-fledged quad-core Core i7 CPU with VAIO&rsquo;s True Performance technology.
The VAIO SX12 comes in a chassis made of carbon fiber and plastic in a bid to make its weight no heavier than 897 grams as well as dimensions not significantly bigger than those of 11-inch notebooks. The mobile PC is slightly smaller than an A4 piece of paper and is around 15.7 ~ 18 mm thick. The laptop is equipped with a 12.5-inch Full-HD display with very thin bezels as well as a backlit keyboard featuring a 19-mm pitch and fluorine-containing UV curing coating.

VAIO&rsquo;s SX12 laptop is based on Intel&rsquo;s 8th Gen quad-core Core U-series processor with UHD Graphics 620 code-named Whiskey Lake (up to Core i7-8565U) which uses the company&rsquo;s TruePerformance technology that combines an advanced cooling system as well as increased CPU power limits in order to enable the CPU to work at higher frequencies for a longer time. The processor can be accompanied by 16 GB of LPDDR3 DRAM as well as a PCIe SSD. For precise specs, check the table below.

Connectivity is one of the key selling features of the VAIO SX12 because unlike some other 12-inch class laptops, this one comes with all the necessary physical ports possible, including GbE, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C (can be used for data, display, and charging) port, one USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A connector, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, an SD card reader, two display outputs (HDMI, D-Sub), a 3.5-mm audio jack, and a proprietary power port. On the wireless side of things, the laptop is equipped with a 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.1 controller as well as an optional 4G/LTE modem. In addition, it has a webcam, a fingerprint reader, stereo speakers, and a microphone.

VAIO does not disclose capacity of the battery it uses for the SX12, but says that it can last for 13 ~ 14.5 hours depending on usage, a claim that has yet to be tested in real life. Meanwhile, the laptop comes with a proprietary 200-gram charger that uses the aforementioned proprietary connector, and also has a USB port to charge the laptop and a mobile phone at the same time.

The VAIO SX12 laptops will be available in five colors, including black, silver, brown, pink, and &lsquo;all black&rsquo; for custom special edition models.

VAIO will start selling its SX12 notebooks in Japan this week starting at $1,100. For corporate customers VAIO will offer a very similar Pro PJ laptop with appropriate functionality. It is unclear whether the new mobile PCs will be available in other countries, but VAIO sells its products in the U.S. and chances are that the SX12 will be sold outside of Japan are fairly high.

MSI went heavily into developing gaming products several years ago, and although the company&rsquo;s laptop lineup isn&rsquo;t exclusively gaming, that is by far the biggest portion of their portfolio, and as such we&rsquo;ve seen some impressive laptops from MSI that offer both performance and quality ahead of their competition. Today we are looking at the latest in their &ldquo;enthusiast&rdquo; level of laptops with the MSI GE75 Raider. The GE range isn&rsquo;t quite at the top end of MSI&rsquo;s lineup &ndash; a spot that is occupied by the GT series &ndash; but it still offers prodigious portable performance without being as tied to the desk as a typical GT laptop would be.

Anandtech: Dynabook’s USB-C Dock Has 10 Ports & an SD Reader

Dynabook Americas (former Toshiba) has introduced its new multi-port USB-C docking station. The USB-C Dock is designed to bring 10 ports and an SD card reader to ultra-portable laptops that have limited number of wired connectivity options. 10 ports do not come cheap though.
The Dynabook USB-C Dock carries a GbE adapter, four USB 3.1 Type-A connectors (one supports charging), one USB 3.1 Type-C port, an SD Card reader, and a 3.5-mm audio jack for headsets. The docking stations can support up to three Full-HD displays using its DisplayPort, HDMI, and D-Sub outputs, or one 4K monitor using the DP 1.4 output.

The USB-C Dock comes with a power connector supporting 20V chargers, so it is likely that its USB-C port can also deliver a sufficient amount of power to charge modern notebooks, but Dynabook does not disclose its Power Delivery rating.

Dynabook&rsquo;s USB-C Dock will be available in the near future for $199.99, which is comparable to similar Thunderbolt 3 docking stations and is considerably more expensive when compared to USB-C docks without Power Delivery from less well-known manufacturers.
There may be two reasons why the USB-C dock is more expensive though; cheap USB-C docks often come with DisplayPort and HDMI connectors that only support 4K30 output, which is not good enough for comfortable use over long periods of time. Given the high price of the Dynabook USB-C dock, we can hope that this device will actually support at least one 4K60 output. Furthermore, the Dynabook USB-C Dock should be able to deliver power to laptops, which also adds to the cost and MSRP.
Related Reading:

Because of the corporate turmoil in 2016 &ndash; 2018 and uncertain future of its PC business, Toshiba has not updated its popular Port&eacute;g&eacute; family of notebooks in the US for more than two years. After Foxconn/Sharp gained control of the said business unit and renamed it to Dynabook, they started to launch new laptops. Among the first new mobile PCs to be released in the USA are the 2019 Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 notebooks with Intel&rsquo;s Whiskey Lake CPUs.

Traditionally, Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 machines have been aimed at demanding business, enterprise, and government users seeking both portability as well as rich feature sets. The new Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 is not an exception: the system comes in a familiar Onyx Blue magnesium allow chassis that enables it to bring together high performance, connectivity, security, and a weight that is among the lowest in the 13.3-inch class. Just like its direct predecessor from 2017, Dynabook&rsquo;s new Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 weighs 1.05 kilograms (2.31 lbs) and is 15.9 mm thick.

When it comes to internals, the new Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 packs Intel&rsquo;s 8th Gen Core i3/i5/i7 processor with built-in UHD Graphics 620 that is accompanied by 8, 16 GB or 32 GB of DDR4 memory as well as up to 1 TB SSD (SATA or PCIe). The CPU is now cooled down using a new quieter S-Type fan and a new cooling system that enables better airflow.
As far as connectivity is concerned, the new laptops are equipped with a Wi-Fi 5 + Bluetooth 5 wireless module, an optional 4G/LTE (select models only) modem, two Thunderbolt 3 ports that can work in DisplayPort and USB 3.1 Gen 2 modes, one USB Type-A connector, one HDMI output, a microSD card reader, and a 3.5-mm audio jack. Traditionally for Toshiba X-series notebooks, the Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 comes with a backlit, spill-resistant keyboard with a trackpoint nub that complements the touchpad. As for multimedia capabilities, the PC has a stereo sub-system comprising speakers co-designed with Harman Kardon that also carry a DTS badge.

Being aimed at customers who value security and reliability, the Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 comes equipped with SecurePad with Synaptics Natural ID fingerprint sensor, a webcam with IR sensors (for Windows Hello facial recognition) as well as a Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0).

Dynabook&rsquo;s Port&eacute;g&eacute; X30 come with an international three-year warranty, which will certainly please frequent travelers. Dynabook Americas will start sales of the new laptops in August (in time for BTS season) at prices that will depend on exact configurations.

Following this week&rsquo;s launch of AMD&rsquo;s new Ryzen 3000 series of processors, reports have once again begun circulating that PCIe 4 will be available on some existing 300 & 400 series boards. This comes despite AMD&rsquo;s official statement last month that they would not be allowing the feature on older boards, as PCIe 4&rsquo;s tighter signal integrity standards would have led to, at best, a highly fragmented market where some boards work, some boards don&rsquo;t, and some boards may be outright marginal. At the time the company stated that the feature would be stripped from the AGESA that goes into the final Ryzen 3000 launch BIOSes for older boards.
So, to get right to the heart of matters, I reached out to AMD PR this evening to find out what&rsquo;s going on with PCIe 4 support. The short version then is that no, AMD&rsquo;s plans have not changed: PCIe 4 support will be disabled in the shipping AGESA for these boards.

Our plan is unchanged. For the reliability and consistency reasons cited at Computex, we still intend to disable PCIe Gen 4 for pre-X570 motherboards. That AGESA is being released to motherboard manufacturers soon.

As things stand, any boards that currently support the feature would be using pre-release AGESAs, and as we&rsquo;ve seen with our own BIOS issues, the Ryzen 3000 BIOS situation is still evolving fast. So with AMD intending to permanently disable the feature &ndash; and prevent any workarounds &ndash; AMD&rsquo;s goals haven&rsquo;t wavered. At best, the few boards that have beta BIOSes with the feature will lose them in the future, unless users opted to stick with an unsupported (and almost certainly buggy) BIOS.
Going forward, proper PCIe 4 support will continue to require an AMD 500-series board specifically designed to meet the signal integrity requirements for the higher speed standard. Right now, this includes boards based on AMD&rsquo;s X570 chipset; and while the company hasn&rsquo;t announced other 500-series chipsets, we&rsquo;re expecting to see more in due time.

Anandtech: Next Generation Intel Atom Tremont: Potential L3 Cache

Intel has already disclosed that it will have a next generation Atom core, code named Tremont, which is to appear in products such as the Foveros-based hybrid Lakefield, as well as Snow Ridge designed for 5G deployments. In advance of the launch of the core and the product, it is customary for some documentation and tools to be updated to prepare for it; in this case, one of those updates has disclosed that the Tremont core would contain an L3 cache &ndash; a first for one of Intel&rsquo;s Atom designs.

Anandtech: Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 855 Plus: A Higher Bin SKU

Today Qualcomm is announcing a new small refresh of the Snapdragon 855 SoC: the new Snapdragon 855+. In the past Qualcomm had the habit of sometimes refreshing their flagship SoCs in the middle of their product life and give them a small performance boost, probably the most known chip fitting this pattern was the Snapdragon 821 from a few years ago. The S835 never got an upgrade, however the S845 last year did get a higher bin variant which ended up in a few vendor&rsquo;s products, including the renamed Snapdragon 850 product that featured the same specifications.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Flagship SoCs 2019

SoC

Snapdragon 855

Snapdragon 855+

CPU

1x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative)
@ 2.84GHz 1x512KB pL2

3x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative)
@ 2.42GHz 3x256KB pL2

4x Kryo 485 Silver (A55 derivative)
@ 1.80GHz 4x128KB pL2

2MB sL3

1x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative)

@ 2.96GHz 1x512KB pL2

3x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative)

@ 2.42GHz 3x256KB pL2

4x Kryo 485 Silver (A55 derivative)

@ 1.80GHz 4x128KB pL2

2MB sL3

GPU

Adreno 640 @ 585MHz

Adreno 640 @ ~672MHz

Memory

4x 16-bit CH @ 2133MHz
LPDDR4x
34.1GB/s

3MB system level cache

ISP/Camera

Dual 14-bit Spectra 380 ISP
1x 48MP or 2x 22MP

Encode/
Decode

2160p60 10-bit H.265
HDR10, HDR10+, HLG
720p480

Integrated Modem

Snapdragon X24 LTE
(Category 20)

DL = 2000Mbps
7x20MHz CA, 256-QAM, 4x4

UL = 316Mbps
3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM

Mfc. Process

7nm (N7)

The new Snapdragon 855+ today closely follows this pattern: It&rsquo;s overall the same SoC as the Snapdragon 855, however Qualcomm is raising the clocks of the Prime CPU core from 2.84GHz to up to 2.96GHz, giving a 4.2% boost for single-threaded workloads.
Along the CPU boost, we also find that the GPU is receiving a larger 15% performance boost. As the Adreno 640 in the 855 was clocked in at 585MHz, the clock on the 855+ has to be around the 672MHz mark, which is an oddly familiar frequency of Adreno GPUs.
Qualcomm states that we should expect hearing about vendor devices using the new Snapdragon 855+ in the next few weeks. Last year, ASUS was the first vendor to announce the ROG Phone using a higher binned S845 around the same summer time-period, and now the company has confirmed that the ROG Phone II will be also the first to use the new S855+.
I&rsquo;m also guessing that it&rsquo;s possible that Samsung&rsquo;s upcoming Note10 to be powered by the S855+ as I&rsquo;m expecting the phone to come with a new Exynos chipset this time around, and the Snapdragon counterpart getting a small boost as well would also make sense.Related Reading:

Anandtech: AMD’s Eight-Core Ryzen 7 2700X Now Available for $200

As a part of Prime Day deals at Amazon, AMD&rsquo;s eight-core Ryzen 7 2700X processor is now available for $199.99, which is $129 off its original MSRP. This is the lowest price for this eight-core processor with an unlocked multiplier ever.
AMD&rsquo;s Ryzen 7 2700X is the company&rsquo;s former flagship CPU that has eight cores with SMT, features a 16 MB L3 cache and runs at 3.7 GHz default clocks. The chip also has two DDR4-2933 memory channels and is compatible with modern AM4 motherboards that are available widely and at different price points. Since we are talking about AMD&rsquo;s X-series processor, it also has the company&rsquo;s Extended Frequency Range (XFR) feature for an added performance boost.
Originally priced at $329, AMD&rsquo;s Ryzen now costs $199.99 at Amazon because of its Prime Day deals, which is also the current price of the &lsquo;slower&rsquo; AMD Ryzen 7 2700 that lacks the XFR capability.

Buy AMD Ryzen 7 2700X on Amazon.com
To make the deal even more attractive, the Ryzen 7 2700X comes with AMD&rsquo;s Prism RGB cooling system, which is rated for a 105 W TDP.
Keep in mind that since this is a part of Amazon&rsquo;s Prime Day campaign, the day is eligible for around ~35 hours after press time, so make it quick if you want the Ryzen 7 2700X for $199.99.
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Anandtech: Arm Flexible Access: Design the SoC Before Spending Money

One of the critical ways in which the Arm licensing model works relates to how its customers acquires Arm&rsquo;s IP, the architecture licenses, or access, along with royalty payments. Every customer, especially the big ones on the leading edge, is different, and we&rsquo;ve gone through how the Arm business model works in detail in a series of articles back in 2013. Today, Arm is taking a different step in how vendors can approach most of its popular IP for the simple task of design - without having to open the wallet to buy a license.